


Silly Old Bear

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-11
Updated: 2013-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:55:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was meant for Cordelia</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silly Old Bear

There are stories that the family tells about the day he came to live with them, about how he was sitting under the Christmas tree after the entire family had returned from the chapel and Sebastian had taken one look at him and claimed him as his own. They’d tried to discourage him – it was a present for Cordelia, after all – but he wouldn’t be dissuaded and had said with his slight lisp and all the authority he could muster: “I thall name him Aloythiuth.”

After that, they were simply inseparable. Neither strayed far from the other, though Julia would occasionally steal the bear away and hide him, sending Sebastian into full-blown rages, tearing the house apart as though someone had stolen his own child from his arms. Julia never tired of the game, of watching Sebastian lose control, so Sebastian began finding ways to keep the bear constantly at his side. He insisted on a small porcelain tub for the bear, sitting beside his as he took his bath. He slept with him and kept the door locked against Julia’s sneaking.

The only time he was allowed out of Sebastian’s hands was when he let Cordelia hold Aloysius, clutching him with fat baby hands and gnawing on stuffed hands and feet and ears. Sebastian would always watch her, smiling in ways that he reserved for no one else, save the bear. They were like his two toys, he rather thought, though deep inside, he was not fool enough to think that they needed him any more than he desperately needed them.

He knew there was talk as he grew older. Worried old women clucking their tongues about a young man with such a strange attachment to a stuffed toy, but he had little time for them, sweeping past them with an entitled air. The very rich can do most anything, he’d learned at his father’s knee and his mother’s skirts. What would brand the poor ready for the asylum would merely earn him a shake of the head and muttering of eccentricity. So he carried the bear where he went – part good luck charm, part security blanket and, in truth, the only friend Sebastian was completely sure he had.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 12-2-07


End file.
